Small Animal

Our state of the art small animal hospital offers everything from routine appointments to soft tissue and orthopedic surgery, intensive care, emergency care and advanced diagnostics. The treatment area is open and accessible with views into our large surgery suite with state of the art monitoring equipment. We have separate dog and cat wards as well as intensive care cages directly facing the treatment and surgery areas for constant observation. We have a completely separate isolation exam room and hospitalization area for those patients with communicable or contagious diseases (ex. parvo, kennel cough, leptospirosis, salmonella, etc).

Preventative medicine: At Crater Animal Clinic we advocate maintaining healthy, happy pets. We encourage annual wellness examinations and fecals, core vaccination and deworming programs, as well as heartworm and flea preventatives. Our thorough, comprehensive wellness exams allow for early detection of potential illness or disease while they are still manageable/treatable. For our complete recommendations on preventative care, please click here.

Orthopedics: Our surgery suite is set up to do most small animal orthopedic work, including fracture repair with pins, plates or wire, ligament reconstruction, internal or external fixation, juvenile pubic symphodiesis (JPS), and more. Additionally, Dr. Matt Lawrence is certified to perform TPLO (tibial plateau leveling osteotomy), the gold standard for repair of torn or ruptured cruciate ligaments in the knee which is one of the most common hind limb injuries in dogs. Orthopedic surgeries are among the more painful surgeries and Crater Animal Clinic prides itself on providing pain relief and comfort to all our patients undergoing surgery, including epidurals, local anesthesia, joint blocks, anti-inflammatories, CRI (constant rate infusion) of pain medications in intravenous fluids.

Soft tissue surgery: We offer a full range of soft tissue surgeries from routine castrations and spays (ovariohysterectomies) to biopsies, abdominal exploratory surgery, foreign body removals, other intestinal surgeries, GDV (gastric dilatation volvulus – twisted stomach), Cesarian sections, bladder surgeries and more. We also have a ventilator for surgeries of the lungs and chest or where artificial respiration is needed.

Ultrasonography: An ultrasound is a versatile machine that emits sound waves that bounce off tissues depending on their density. The reflected waves are detected by the ultrasound probe and thus register an image. For our small animal patients we use ultrasonography for early pregnancy detection, full abdominal exams (liver, spleen kidneys, pancreas, etc.), evaluation of the bladder, basic cardiac evaluation, and more. Ultrasound often gives us more information about the pathology of our patient’s illness. We also use the ultrasound for guiding biopsies of internal organs and obtaining sterile urine samples.

Radiology: Our small animal X-ray machine can be used for evaluation of fractures, hip dysplasia and other orthopedic problems as well as soft tissue diagnostics of the bladder, intestine, heart, lungs, liver and kidneys. We also perform dental radiographs with specialized equipment that can be valuable to detect diseased teeth, especially in situations where the disease process involves only the tip of the roots.We also perform contrast studies of the bladder, kidneys and intestines.

Intensive Care: We are well equipped to manage our patients who require hospitalization and intensive care. Our intensive care cages face the treatment and surgery areas for constant observation. They are set up for heat, oxygen, and have fluid pumps available for IV fluids. For our more critical cases we have a nurse on premise who is available to check on patients during the night in addition to the on-call doctor.

Denistry: Dental care is of major importance for our small animal patients. Tartar build-up can result in foul breath, sore or infected gums, tooth root abscesses and even body-wide illness. We have modern dental equipment for cleaning, scaling and polishing teeth as well as equipment for extracting teeth when necessary diagnosed through dental radiographs. We utilize two methods to evaluate the health status of all teeth. The teeth are examined visually and with dental probe for infection, abscessed roots, mobility and any other defects or pathology. Dental radiographs can be valuable to detect diseased teeth. We do everything we can to save partially diseased teeth, but often the disease process has progressed beyond the ability to restore oral health. With annual wellness exams we can monitor our patients’ teeth and can advise whether some extra home care is needed or when a dental cleaning or extraction is indicated.

Veterinary Orthopedic Manipulation (VOM) : Veterinary orthopedic manipulation or VOM for short, is a chiropractic technique that utilizes a graduated, spinal accelerometer called an activator. The activator is a stainless steel, spring loaded device that generates a very rapid, mechanical energy wave into the tissues and bones of the spine. The mechanical energy wave generated is a potent stimulator of a certain type of sensory nerve ending, called mechanoreceptors. The mechanoreceptors send a very large nerve impulse directly to the spinal cord to reset the nervous system. There is no torqing or tearing of the tissues because the actual amount of movement is very small. VOM is used to treat neurological and spinal diseases in both small and large animal patients.

Endoscopy: We have a 4.5 foot endoscope that can be used for a variety of diagnostics in small animals including visualization of the nasal passages (in larger dogs), trachea and lungs, esophagus, stomach and large intestine. Conditions where we might choose to use endoscopy include bleeding from the nose, chronic coughing or lung sounds, pneumonia, choking, foreign bodies in the stomach, IBD (inflammatory bowel disease), and more. A video otoscope is also available to view inside the ear canals of our small animal patients.